PV labels in Canada
“PV labels” is an American phrase for an American rulebook. The kits that come up first when you search it are built to the NEC, and a Canadian inspector is reading C22.1:24. The plates are not interchangeable, and the ones that look closest are the ones that fail.
Sections 64 and 84 — not NEC Articles 690 and 705.
Before your province, your utility and your fire authority have their say.
CEC Rule 64-200(3), on the photovoltaic warning sign, at 9.5 mm capitals.
Four ways a US kit fails a Canadian inspection
1 · The citations are wrong
A US placard cites NEC articles. A Canadian inspector works from C22.1:24, where the same idea lives at a different number — and several of those numbers moved in the 2024 edition. The rapid-shutdown placard went from 64-218(6) to 64-218(7); the do-not-relocate marking went from 64-112(4)(b)(iii) to 64-112(4)(c). The full renumbering is here.
2 · The utility plates are missing entirely
No American kit contains a Hydro One MicroDER disconnect tag, Toronto Hydro's “MAIN DG DISCONNECT” plate, a Manitoba Hydro utility-disconnect locator or a Nova Scotia Power inverter output plate. Those are the plates that get a job failed, and they do not exist south of the border.
3 · Printed, not engraved
Most US kits are printed vinyl or reflective decal. That is legal in much of Canada, since the Code asks for permanence and legibility rather than a process. It is not legal in Manitoba Hydro territory, whose Informative Bulletin 64-0 requires engraved lamacoids outright. Manitoba's wording is here.
4 · The colour is assumed
In Canada the photovoltaic warning sign has a colour and a letter height in the Code: CEC Rule 64-200(3) sets capitals at least 9.5 mm high, white on red. Manitoba Hydro and Nova Scotia Power ask for engraved red plates with white lettering. And BC Hydro's sample drawing shows its disconnect ID labels black on white, which some B.C. inspectors ask for.
PV labels, solar labels, solar placards, lamacoids, phenolic tags and legend plates all describe the same object on a Canadian solar job: an engraved plate screwed or bonded to equipment. The first three are what the trade searches for; the last three are what a shop calls the product it makes.
The physical practice — where a plate goes, how it is fastened, what a fire crew expects to find at the service — is very close on both sides of the border. It is the wording, the citations and the utility layer that do not travel.
That our plates are code compliant, CSA approved or guaranteed to pass. Certification attaches to equipment and to the installation as it is inspected. A plate in a bag has no status of its own, whoever made it.
What a Canadian PV label set costs
Base set by job type, priced from the same catalogue the builder quotes from.
| Job | Plates |
|---|---|
| House — string inverter | 20 |
| House — microinverters | 16 |
| House — with battery | 24 |
| Commercial rooftop | 29 |
| Ground mount / solar farm | 31 |
| Off-grid / cabin | 15 |
| Re-label an existing install | 7 |